Studying the well-trained mind: Buddhist monks and Western scientists are comparing notes on how the mind works and collaborating to test insights gleaned from meditation.(Buddhism and Neuroscience)

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<a href="https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-110116492.html" title="Studying the well-trained mind: Buddhist monks and Western scientists are comparing notes on how the mind works and collaborating to test insights gleaned from meditation.(Buddhism and Neuroscience) | HighBeam Research">Studying the well-trained mind: Buddhist monks and Western scientists are comparing notes on how the mind works and collaborating to test insights gleaned from meditation.(Buddhism and Neuroscience)</a>

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS -- Matthieu Ricard is no ordinary Buddhist monk. He earned his Ph.D. in molecular biology at the Pasteur Institute in Paris before deciding 30 years ago to devote his life to the practice of Tibetan Buddhism. Now Ricard, a member of the Shechen Monastery in Nepal, is involved in science again, as both a subject and a collaborator in a neuroscience project at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. There he and neuroscientist Richard Davidson hope to learn whether the study of trained meditators can provide insights into the mechanisms of brain function or new therapeutic approaches for psychology.

This unusual collaboration and others like it were catalyzed by the Mind and Life Institute, created in the 1980s by businessman Adam Engle and the late neuroscientist Francisco Varela to foster a dialogue between Buddhist scholars and Western scientists. Initially the institute sponsored small, private meetings held at the Dalai Lama's headquarters in Dharamsala, India. But last month the meetings went public for the first time, with a conference called Investigating the Mind, held here at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-sponsored by MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

For 2 days, panels of neuroscientists and Buddhist scholars took the stage with the Dalai Lama before an audience of 1100 to discuss attention, mental imagery, and emotion--topics of interest to Buddhists and scientists. The atmosphere was casual; the Tibetan leader huddled with speakers over a laptop to follow their presentations and frequently interrupted with questions or comments.

Mind and Life co-founder Varela, who was director of research at CNRS's Cognitive Neurosciences and Brain Imaging Laboratory in Paris, held a deep conviction that Buddhists, with their 2500-year history of introspective inquiry into the nature of the mind, had much to offer to neuroscientists. A handful of neuroscientists such as Davidson who were familiar with Buddhism agreed. Others have come to the meetings out of curiosity but with less certainty of what the Buddhists could contribute. "I have to confess that some of the scientists came to the table looking at the Buddhists almost as specimens," says cognitive neuroscientist Jonathan Cohen of Princeton University, who participated in the MIT meeting. …

A disciplined mindtransforms adversity Delight in diligence! Watch over your mind! Pull yourselves out of misfortune like an elephant sunk in mud - The Dhammapada, Chapter 23 Elephant Losang Tendrol is a nun in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. She teaches meditation at the Guhyasamaja Buddhist…

Brains, Buddhas, and Believing: The Problem of Intentionality in Classical Buddhist and CognitiveScientific Philosophy of Mind. By Dan Arnold. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. Pp. xiv-i- 311. $50.Arnold's book constructs a dialogue between fourth to eleventh century Indian intellectuals…

The Misleading Mind: How We Create Our Own Problems and How Buddhist Psychology Can Help Us Solve Them By Karuna Cayton New World Library [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Western psychology and Buddhism take very different approaches to mental health and happiness: while Western therapists tend to treat…

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